ALSACAT:

As its name suggests, ALSACAT is my comprehensive catalog of UFO sighting reports in Alsace, the region is the North-East of France, whether they are "explained" or "unexplained".

The ALSACAT catalog is made of case files with a case number, summary, quantitative information (date, location, number of witnesses...), classifications, all sources mentioning the case with their references, a discussion of the case in order to evaluate its causes, and a history of the changes made to the file. A general index and thematic sub-catalogs give access to these Alsatian case files.

Case of Bruebach, on August 1, 2013:

Case number:

ALSACAT-2013-08-01-BRUEBACH-1

Summary:

On the "Facebook" of "Gerard the Alsatian", there is an image of an indistinct thing in the sky above Bruebach

Thursday, 8/1/2013" and the time "9:43" are specified, and the image is headlined "A UFO flying over our village!":

Data:

Temporal data:

Date:

August 1, 2013

Time:

09:43 a.m.

Duration:

?

First known report date:

August 1, 2013

Reporting delay:

Hours

Geographical data:

Department:

Haut-Rhin

City:

Bruebach

Place:

From a path near the edge of the village.

Latitude:

47.701

Longitude:

-7.36

Uncertainty ratio:

3 km

Witnesses data:

Number of alleged witnesses:

?

Number of known witnesses:

1

Number of named witnesses:

0

Witness(es) ages:

Adult?

Witness(es) types:

Man?

Ufology data:

Reporting channel:

Image published on Facebook with date, hour an place, no other information

Type of location:

Country way near a village.

Visibility conditions:

Day, clear weather, sunny.

UFO observed:

?

UFO arrival observed:

?

UFO departure observed:

?

Entities:

No

Photographs:

Yes.

Sketch(s) by witness(es):

No.

Sketch(es) approved by witness(es):

No.

Witness(es) feelings:

?

Witnesses interpretation:

"UFO", but maybe the witness knew it was not a UFO and was just joking.

Classifications:

Hynek:

DD

ALSACAT:

BLURFO, insect or bird or balloon or something else.

Sources:

Discussion:

My enlargement of the supposed "UFO" by 10 with the same aspect ratio without creating illusory information by pixel interpolation gives this:

In other words, this is not detailed enough to say much about it, except that it does not look obviously like an insect or a bird. But these possibilities are not totally excluded as the movement of an insect or bird does result in this kind of image sometimes.

Another possibility is that of a party balloon, or some object thrown into the air.

The problem is that there is a serious lack of information in the case. It is not known, for example, if the person who took the picture saw this thing with his own eyes also, or, as it is often the case, noticed the thing only once the image was looked at. The picture is unfortunately published in a small format, certainly not the size of the original picture, the EXIF information was obviously removed automatically by the process of uploading it to Facebook. At least some editing was performed, the additions of the red arrow, the date and the time.

All this leaves us with a one more "BLURFO" - these pseudo-UFOs on digital photos that are birds, balloons, insects or whatever with so little definition that some believe it was a "UFO". I obviously cannot prove that it was not an alien craft or something otherwide extraordinary, but I totally doubt it.

It is perfectly possible that the photographer himself knows perfectly well that it was in no way a "UFO", and published the image just to fun, innocently.

Apparently, in the small world of ufology, nobody found this picture and nobody went hysterical about it, for once.

Evaluation:

BLURFO, insect or bird or balloon or something else.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

[ge1] * On the "Facebook" of "Gérard l'Alsacien", of Bruebach, found in 2014, August 1, 2013, at https://www.facebook.com/VillageDeBruebach?ref=stream&filter=2